. and tom baker, consumer editor for ktvu channel 2 news. we'll begin with you, tom. tell us what you can about the explosion that shook all of us yesterday. >> it is a remarkable failure because it really shouldn't happen, given all of the protocols in place and all the things that happened to have such a fail-year you wonder. with such a catastrophic failure somebody punched a hole in one of these mains and caused a spark but that doesn't appear to be the case here. something failed in such a catastrophic way that the valves are maybe a mile, two miles apart so now all of this highly compressed gas which is under several hundred pounds of pressure per square inch is venting to the atmosphere. it catches on fire. it becomes a blow torch. it has to work out and while that was happening it was burning up that particular neighborhood. generally speaking, we don't know really what happened. we know there was a significant failure and generally speaking has been my experience in covering all kinds of disasters it's a chain of events rather than a single event but there is plenty going on that

but across the bay area. mr. hart also gave us an updated information just about the scene there. we learned that the crater is 167 by 26 feet wide. the depth is unknown. that is much larger than a previous estimate. the pipe itself was 28 feet long. that's the segment that blew out in the explosion. it apparently blew 100 feet. let's hear more of what mr. hart had to say just minutes ago. >> we do understand that the pipe was odorized which means it has an odor in it. that's part of our investigation to look into these allegations that we've heard that people were smelling this pipe and had reported smelling the pipe before this accident occurred. >> reporter: mr. hart right there was talking about allegations that people, residents who live near the explosion site made weeks before the explosion took place, that there was a smell of gas in the air. and he said that this pipe -- basically he said this is possible because this section of pipe was odorized or was mode to produce an odor if there was some kind of leak. he stopped short of saying thaed that he has verified those accounts. but t

, the safety checks come too late. kimberly tere joins us to continue the coverage. she has the story of a family with a red-tagged home. >> reporter: this family, along with the others who have the red-tagged homes, it's just a waiting game. and there are more questions than answers at this point. they've seen where their home once stood. it's now just rubble. that photo in a local paper. ricardo and his son ran for their lives thursday right after they heard the explosion and saw the fire with just the clothes on their back, they went out their backyard. they had to climb fences and went through neighbors' yards to escape the fast-moving flames. their house is just a couple of houses down from where the pipeline exploded. they say they are grateful to be alive. right now, their main concern is their home. they have already filed a claim with their insurance company and came to today's town hall meeting to find out what resources may be available to them and what pg&e's position is in regards to helping their family rebuild. >> well, we want to know what will happen after this, you k

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